The present disclosure relates generally to communication systems, and more particularly, to narrowband communications.
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various telecommunication services such as telephony, video, data, messaging, and broadcasts. Typical wireless communication systems may employ multiple-access technologies capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing available system resources. Examples of such multiple-access technologies include code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency division multiple access (FDMA) systems, orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems, single-carrier frequency division multiple access (SC-FDMA) systems, and time division synchronous code division multiple access (TD-SCDMA) systems.
These multiple access technologies have been adopted in various telecommunication standards to provide a common protocol that enables different wireless devices to communicate on a municipal, national, regional, and even global level. An example telecommunication standard is 5G New Radio (NR). 5G NR is part of a continuous mobile broadband evolution promulgated by Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) to meet new requirements associated with latency, reliability, security, scalability (e.g., with Internet of Things (IoT)), and other requirements. 5G NR includes services associated with enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), massive machine type communications (mMTC), and ultra-reliable low latency communications (URLLC). Some aspects of 5G NR may be based on the 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) standard. There exists a need for further improvements in 5G NR technology. These improvements may also be applicable to other multi-access technologies and the telecommunication standards that employ these technologies.
Narrowband communications involve communicating with a smaller frequency bandwidth as compared to the frequency bandwidth used for LTE communications. Narrowband communications may reduce device complexity, enable multi-year battery life, and provide deeper coverage to reach challenging locations such as deep inside buildings. An example of narrowband communication is enhanced machine-type communication (eMTC), which in some cases may be limited to six resource blocks (RBs) of system bandwidth, e.g., 1.08 MHz. Another example of narrowband communication is narrowband (NB) IoT (NB-IoT) communication, which may be limited to a single RB of system bandwidth, e.g., 180 kHz.
NB-IoT is a technology standardized by the 3GPP standards body for narrowband radio technology specially designed for the IoT. Special focuses of this standard include indoor coverage, lower cost, longer battery life, and larger number of devices. The NB-IoT technology may be deployed “in-band,” utilizing resource blocks within, for example, normal LTE spectrum or Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) spectrum. In addition, NB-IoT may be deployed in the unused RBs within a guard band of an LTE carrier, or “standalone” for deployments in dedicated spectrum. Since the narrow bandwidth of NB-IoT may overlap a wider bandwidth of another communication, such as GSM, there is a need for fast and efficient band scan for narrowband communication.